Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey - Main results

Seventeen years after adoption of EU laws that forbid discrimination, immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and minority
ethnic groups continue to face widespread discrimination across the EU and in all areas of life – most often when seeking
employment. For many, discrimination is a recurring experience. This is just one of the findings of FRA’s second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS II), which
collected information from over 25,500 respondents with different ethnic minority and immigrant backgrounds across all
28 EU Member States.

Overview

Hate-motivated harassment too remains a scourge. While individuals believe their ethnic or immigrant background is the main reason for facing discrimination, they identify their names, skin colour and religion as additional triggers. Not surprisingly, experiences with discrimination and hate-motivated harassment and violence chip away at individuals’ trust in public institutions and undermine feelings of attachment to their country of residence.

The report follows up and expands on FRA’s first major EU-wide survey on minorities’ and migrants’ experiences, conducted in 2008. The survey focuses on discrimination in different settings, police stops, criminal victimisation, rights awareness and societal participation.

Muslims living in the EU face discrimination in a broad range of settings – and particularly when looking for work,
on the job, and when trying to access public or private services. The report examines how characteristics – such
as an individual's first and last name, skin colour and the wearing of visible religious symbols like a headscarf,
for example – may trigger discriminatory treatment and harassment.

Some 80% of Roma surveyed live below their country’s at-risk-of-poverty threshold; every third Roma lives in housing without tap water; every third Roma child lives in a household where someone went to bed hungry at least once in the previous month; and 50% of Roma between the ages of six and 24 do not attend school. This EU-MIDIS II report underscores an unsettling but unavoidable reality: the European Union’s largest ethnic minority continues to face intolerable discrimination and unequal access to vital services.

Almost twenty years after adoption of EU laws forbidding discrimination, people of African descent in the EU face widespread
and entrenched prejudice and exclusion. This report outlines selected results from FRA's second large-scale
EU-wide survey on migrants and minorities (EU-MIDIS II). It examines the experiences of almost 6,000 people of African
descent in 12 EU Member States.

FRA’s second EU Minorities and Discrimination survey (EU-MIDIS II) collected information from over 25,000 respondents with
different ethnic minority and immigrant backgrounds across all 28 EU Member States. The main findings from the survey,
published in 2017, pointed to a number of differences in the way women and men with immigrant backgrounds across the
European Union (EU) experience how their rights are respected. This report summarises some of the most relevant survey
findings in this regard, which show the need for targeted, gender-sensitive measures that promote the integration of – specifically
– women who are immigrants or descendants of immigrants.

Across the EU, people of African
descent face widespread and entrenched prejudice
and exclusion. Racial discrimination and harassment
are commonplace. Experiences with racist
violence vary, but reach as high as 14 %. Discriminatory
profiling by the police is a common reality.
Hurdles to inclusion are multi-faceted, particularly
when it comes to looking for jobs and housing.